H(A)PPY

by Nicola Barker

  Mira A – B – I – we – glance around and our chest swells with pride. She – I – we – can scarcely suppress a sob at the dazzling sight that greets our hollow eyes.

  Oh look – look – we are so beautiful!

  Look! See!

  We are so Perfect! So Pure! So Clean! So True!

  Was ever anything so lovely as this? As us – we? The Young?

  It’s as if I – she – we – had never really noticed how truly perfect – how radiant – The Young are before This Moment: our skin so tight, our bodies so slender, our eyes so luminous. So full of calm. And here we all are, buzzing and humming like a swarm of white bees around a rich, clean pollen source.

  Can this be it? The New Certainty of which Tuesday spoke so eloquently?

  Is this Innocence and Purity?

  Or . . . ?

  Mira A suddenly frowns.

  Or is this Betrayal?

  I – she – we – am struggling to tell.

  *TeRRiBLe DiSCiPLiNE*

  But I – we – she – are trying to sniff it out.

  I – we – she – are trying to sense it.

  This New Certainty.

  It’s what I – we – she – crave.

  Above everything.

  The Old Certainty is gone.

  Isn’t it? In spite of Kipp’s heartfelt declarations (his gentle evasions)?

  That Old Certainty has imploded.

  Where did it go?

  How?

  Why?

  Can the New Certainty make everything feel hole again?

  Hole?

  Whole –

  Whole.

  Whole again.

  Perhaps you will have noticed that Mira A’s Sensor is now feeding random script onto the back of its screen?

  Perhaps you will have noticed that Mira A’s Graph is no longer pinkening or purpling? It is blueing and greening. In fact Mira A is currently operating – to all intents and purposes – in a state of complete liberty. Invisibility. The narrative surges out of her without pause or restraint. Mira A can say words like

  devastating

  or

  rotten

  or

  abducted

  or

  Krishna

  and nothing happens. In fact the words never harden, they simply reverse and then retreat the very moment they appear. The second they are uttered, they fade. They evaporate.

  I am searching the crowd for a glimpse of Tuesday, but I suspect that she will not be here. I have a bad feeling about Tuesday. When I direct my Sensor to her – which I have done, carelessly (stupidly, fearlessly) on several occasions now – nothing happens. I do spot Powys from the Kora Group, however, milling about, inconspicuously, in the crowd. I try and catch his eye but he ducks from view. I tighten Tuck’s leash, pull him to heel and head off in hot pursuit.

  I must follow him.

  We must speak.

  Powys is the weak link, surely?

  The tuning fork is in your heart.

  Perhaps I – we – are the weak link?

  Are all of our links weak?

  Are we corrupted?

  Is this a war that we do not even know we are fighting?

  The Young are massing.

  The Young are assembling like a host of pure white letters spelling out something Fresh and Clean onto The System’s infinite alabaster page.

  We are a message that is no message. We are True. We are in This Moment. We gently inhabit the Ever Present.

  *DISTRUST AND CHICKEN SOUP NEVER HARMED ANYONE!*

  What?

  Whose thought was that?

  Not mine!

  Surely?

  Distrust and . . . ?

  Who am I?

  Who is she?

  Who are we?

  Which is A?

  Which is B?

  ‘In 1870, at the end of the contemptible imperialist genocide, the assault on our national identity and on the Guaraní language, basis of social cohesion and popular resistance in Paraguay began. To kill the Paraguayans, first you have to kill their cursed language, railed the victors. From being the standard language, used in every official and social sphere, Guaraní was forbidden as soon as the war ended. Irrefutable proof of a deliberate policy to exterminate Guaraní is to be found in the school system: on March 7, 1870, six days after the end of the war, a puppet government signed a decree prohibiting the use of the national language in schools, and so began the crimes against humanity suffered by Paraguayan boys and girls. Corporal and psychological punishments inflicted on the children for speaking in school the only language they knew included, among other things, slaps on the mouth, detention during recess, canings, insults and name-calling. These insults and attacks endured by schoolchildren over more than a century have created a genuine social mutism, with serious effects on the collective self-confidence of the Paraguayan people.’

  Oh we are so vivid! So effulgent! There is a soft, pale glow in the sky which perfectly accentuates the clarity of our Screens and our Sensors, and it is warm and the evening air is slightly scented with the reinvigorating aroma of crushed rosemary.

  This is The Path of Light.

  Ah yes.

  This is The Path.

  We are walking The Path of Light. In Harmony.

  ‘I do not know what the columns under Resquin and Barrios . . . did or failed to do, but I am tempted to say that they did nothing at all . . . Many of us starved to death. We were forced to eat our leather whips and cartridge belts, as well as Colonel Martinez’s lame horse . . . ’

  It’s strange, but I – she – we – feel almost invisible – almost inviolable. I – she – we – find Powys hiding behind a giant air vent. I tap him on the shoulder and he turns with a start, but his eyes glance past me, over my shoulder.

  Who is he looking at?

  ‘It’s me, Powys,’ I say. ‘It’s Mira A, remember?’

  Powys nods distractedly. He is feeling deep inside his pockets.

  ‘I need to talk about Tue—’ I start off, but he quickly interrupts (maintaining eye contact, in this instance, for the briefest of moments).

  ‘Tue . . . ah, tulips.’ He nods. ‘Yes. Yes, the tulips have flowered,’ he murmurs, wincing slightly, ‘and now they have been plucked.’

  I am silent.

  Powys removes a small box from within his pocket and rests it on the flat of his palm. It is a seed box.

  ‘I have been fortunate enough to acquire a modest selection of unusual mushroom spore,’ he says, ‘which I think you may be interested to take a look at.’

  He carefully opens the box, comes to stand beside me and deftly angles the inside lid of the box to a nearby light source. It is obvious by the sure way he performs this transaction that it’s an activity in which he has some level of expertise. He then shows me the box’s interior. It is all mirror. I wince at the reflective glare and try to focus in on the contents. If I look carefully I can just about decipher a small cluster of what appear to be . . . to be old teeth. Baby teeth. Milk teeth.

  ‘You grow careless,’ he mutters.

  I glance sideways, into his face.

  ‘The box,’ he says softly.

  I return my attention to it but my eyes begin to water.

  ‘What happened?’ I ask.

  ‘She is gone. You must try not to think of her. If you think of her the bruise will spread. It will poison your Stream. You will place us all at risk.’

  ‘Where has she gone? Who took her?’

  ‘You were watching her when it happened,’ Powys snorts. ‘You know who took her, and where.’

  I – we – stiffen: ‘The Unknown?’

  ‘The Simulation of the Real. Higher forms of Perfection. They are perceived to be a threat to the survival of The Young.’

  ‘And lower forms of perfection?’ I whisper, my heart thudding.

  ‘Your Stream has become difficult to decipher,’ Powys affirms. ‘The Young require clarity. A place where everything is Known. Nothing i
s Unknown. We require certainty – transparence. But you are uncertain. You are opaque. You are gradually becoming invisible. You are erasing yourself, with narrative. Soon there will be nothing left. Just words.’

  ‘I am – we . . . we are . . . we are tormented by the narrative,’ I stutter.

  ‘Then you must destroy it.’ Powys shrugs. ‘Stop telling it. Remain silent.’

  ‘How?’ I groan.

  ‘You will need discipline. Terrible discipline.’

  I start and then shudder at this phrase.

  ‘Because there are places you will be tempted to go from which you will never be able to return,’ Powys continues. ‘Gaps will form. First there will be narrative, then there will be the dreadful whiteness. And after that . . . ?’ He shakes his head. ‘Who knows?’

  ‘But Tuesday thought . . . she said I was merely a decoy,’ I whisper, ‘a trap. For her. Perhaps now that she is gone . . . ?’

  ‘Tuesday liked to look for signs.’ Powys’s mouth shapes into a deathly grin. ‘It was her only real weakness. Have you ever considered that Tuesday may’ve been your stooge? Your decoy?’

  ‘They will carry me to The Unknown!’ I gasp.

  Powys laughs. ‘No. No, Mira A. They are way too clever for that. You will carry yourself there. Just as Tuesday did.’

  I . . . I . . . I had a dream and . . . and in it I saw the man, Barrios, the famous guitarist, with his metal strings and the strange scars on his upper lip and he had a bag and he tipped it out and it was full of stones and they hit the floor with a clatter and then he started to play and when he had . . . no . . . it was the other way around . . . he had the bag and it was full of stones and he began to play and if he . . . if he played the song perfectly then he took out a stone, just one stone, and he placed it down, softly, on to the tiles, then he played the song again and . . . and . . . if he played it perfectly then he would take out another stone and place it down beside the first stone and then again and again and again and again with such TERRIBLE, such cruel, such unbelievable DISCIPLINE but if he made a mistake, just one, just one, small mistake then he would scoop up all the stones and he would place them back into the bag and he would start over, he would start over, and the whole thing would begin again until he had . . . but in the dream he tipped out the stones onto the tiles and there was a clattering sound and instead of stones I suddenly noticed that instead of stones on the tiles there were teeth . . . there were teeth . . . lots of teeth . . . lots of baby teeth . . .

  I CAN’T BEAR IT! I CAN’T BEAR IT! I MUST TELL THE STORY OF MYSELF! I MUST TELL IT EVEN IF – IN ALL LIKELIHOOD – IT ISN’T EVEN MY STORY BUT THE STORY OF SOMEONE ELSE. I MUST TELL IT! I MUST! I MUST!

  My head is throbbing. The plates have embedded. I am walking the dog, Tuck, I am running on the Power Spot. I am doing everything right, everything, everything right, but everything is somehow wrong. Because of the flaw. The flaw. Why can’t they find it and root it out?

  Why can’t they find it?

  Is it the little girl?

  Is it the ugly Indian?

  Is it something lost within?

  A mere trace?

  Is it something introduced?

  Is it the whiteness?

  Is it the gaps?

  Is it you-know-who?

  Is it the you-know-what?

  Am I the first domino?

  Will I bring everything – the entire edifice – crashing down all around me?

  Or am I already lost – invisible – forgotten – abandoned – remaindered – opaque?

  There are two of us, we are two: desire and restraint – we are double, like **** said, there are two of us, the second and the first, A and B. She was always there. Waiting for her chance. And the second star oscillates – even more than the first. It vibrates. Like a metal guitar string. It sings in the high notes. The tremolo.

  Duck! Shield yourself! Draw breath! Here it comes! I have released it! The wall of narrative! The landslide! The mudslide! The tsunami! The flood!

  Here it comes!

  ‘shE wAs takEn aWay and torTUred. ThIs time She was allowed to see her HUSBAND, whO had bEEn badly BeAten. They TORTuRED each in the presENCe of the OtheR. AT onE stAGe, beTWeeN bOUts of AgOny, sHe sAiD thAT She hAd noTHINg to saY beCAUse shE Knew notHINg. THat MadE her fEEL strONger. WhEN thEY tOOk hEr to The PoliCE cLINic, coVered iN blOOd, thERe wAs noT a siNGle iNCh of her boDY that Had nOt bEEn beaTEN. ThEy maDe her STand faCIng a WaLL for EIGHT dAys with hEr fEEt swoLLen froM THe torTUre. If sHe fell aslEEP they hIT her eARS with bOTh hanDs (a TORture they refeRRed to as “THE telePHone”), a proceSS tHAt haS leFt hEr heaRING damaGED to tHIs daY . . . ’

  Take refuge!

  ‘... It was police inspector Barrios who tortured me...’

  What?!

  ‘In the mostly Catholic country, 684 girls between 10 and 14 gave birth last year. Most of the minors had been victims of sexual abuse . . . ’

  Who?!

  ‘The “souls” are omnipresent, come in many sizes and shapes, are sometimes called Ove, sometimes Ianve, and are kept at bay by the efforts of the Atchei. Are they the person after he is dead or are they only his wicked double? Certain things follow from death: there is a splitting of manove into an enemy ghost and a neutral “spirit”, which innocently goes to live where the sun sets, the resting place of the dead which the Atchei describe as a great savanna or the Invisible Forest . . .’

  The souls?

  ‘Health minister Antonio Barrios said that, even in this case, an abortion would be a violation of Paraguayan law . . . ’

  He said . . . ?

  ‘Nationalist writers also developed the idea of the raza guaraní, a founding myth of common ancestry and of common ethnic community. Paraguayans, it was argued, were the result of the mix of Spanish and Guaraní, the enlightened European and the noble savage, the “warrior farmer”... Even when the Spanish arrived, Guaraní-speaking groups were only present in parts of the east, while an array of very different groups (in terms of language and culture) dominated other areas...

  ... Many Paraguayans may passionately believe themselves to be part of a Guaraní “race”, but genetically any “Guaraní blood” is likely to be very thinly dispersed in modern Paraguay. As Bartomeu Meliá has argued,“Given the historic and social reality of Paraguay and the fusion of such diverse ethnic elements – above all European – the concept of race has no meaning at all. The so-called Guaraní race is in no way a defining element of our national being...”

  ... There are perhaps five factors that have influenced Paraguay’s historical development and identity through shared national experience: isolation, war, land, immigration, and language.’

  But . . . No. I don’t understand. Is the language – the soul – powerful (the source, the start of everything), or is it merely an illusion? A myth?

  Is it real or . . . or . . . ?

  ‘The trees were not tall, but they grew so closely together that their branches interlinked; beneath them . . . waterlogged and overgrown with a profusion of plants, thorny bushes . . .

  . . . incredibly enough, cacti. There were cacti that looked like a series of green plates stuck together by . . .

  . . . yellow spikes and pale, mauve flowers; others were like octopuses . . .

  . . . a small plant in great profusion . . .

  . . . only a few inches . . .

  . . . delicate, cup-shaped flower of magenta red . . .

  . . . so thickly . . .

  . . . traveling along . . .

  . . . endless flower-bed . . . ’

  Back here . . .

  In the jungle . . .

  So very . . . so extraordinarily hot

  ‘The guitar, that instrument of such poor resources, a rebel like this Indian, seems to have become docile in the agile, caressing hands of this man of the pampas . . . ’

  Need . . .

  ‘I swatted him carelessly…

  …looking about I saw to my horror…that what I had taken to be a slight mi
st drifting over the grass was in reality a cloud of these insects…

  …mosquitoes clung to our faces, necks and arms and even… ’

  Air!

  ‘Tomás Salomoni, the Paraguayan Ambassador to Mexico . . . persuaded Barrios to cease his Nitsuga manner of presentation because “it was not dignified nor appropriate” . . . ’

  Need . . .

  ‘…”looks just like a gigantic wood-louse,” whispered Jacquie…

  … “He walks just like a tank, no?”’

  Some . . .

  ‘. . . at this time in Buenos Aires (February-March) Barrios had plastic surgery done to diminish the size of his upper lip. Before this operation Barrios sported a moustache to conceal this prominent lip. From this date on, in all photos taken of Barrios it can be noted that he is without a moustache . . .’

  Relief . . .

  ‘We took our horses across the river…

  …hooves crushed the plants and flowers…

  …narrow lane of glittering water…’

  From . . .

  ‘This is nothing but a popular guitarist, who does not know music and who has no place in these confines of culture…’

  All this . . .

  ‘. . . THE ABSENCE OF MAJOR OBJECTIVE WORKS ON THE HISTORY OF PARAGUAY IS STRIKING, AND IT IS A REFLECTION OF A DEEP LACK OF CONSENSUS REGARDING FUNDAMENTAL HISTORICAL EVENTS. THIS MAKES THE THEMES OF HISTORY (AND HENCE IDENTITY) AN EXTRAORDINARILY CONTESTED FIELD . . . ’

  Information . . .

  ‘These things rarely happened, and when they did, people would say harsh things and make fun of the guilty person but would feel no need to punish him: everyone knew that people like Bujamiarangi were transformed into roe bucks when they died. But he developed a taste for it and continued to make meno with his daughter instead of having his fun once and then forgetting about it. His obstinacy irritated the Atchei, and one woman beseeched her husband to kill Bujamiarangi: “Someone who makes love to his own daughter has no valour whatsoever. The Atchei don’t want to see it. Go kill him!” And then she added, to give her husband more incentive to commit the murder: “I want to eat Atchei flesh. The one who must be killed, the possessor of his own daughter, is Bujamiarangi.” The husband killed the incestuous father, and the Atchei ate him. What had been the stronger force in the irritated wife: the horror of incest or the desire for human flesh? Could the first have been nothing more than an excuse for the second? To describe Bujamiarangi’s actions the Atchei used the term meno – to make love – much less often than its equivalent, which was far more brutal and savage even in the minds of the Indians: uu or tyku, to eat. “Bujamiarangi eats his daughter. I want to eat Bujamiarangi.” . . . to eat someone is in some sense to make love with him. If a father eats his daughter, he would metaphorically be guilty of incest . . . the Atchei do not eat those with whom they are forbidden to make meno: the prohibition against incest and this eating taboo are part of a single unified system.’